I have spoken in my first prompt about the entire first grade class being Spanish with the exception of two Asian students. Since I am only allowed to observe and work with students in my assigned class I decided that it would be best to take a look at the bigger picture of the backgrounds of the students in this Providence school. I turned to InfoWorks to gain a better perspective. I have learned that in the school I have been working in 81% of the students are Hispanic, 10% are White, 7% are African American, 2% are Asian and 0% are Native American. This doesn’t reflect the population of the first grade classroom that I have been working in. I believe this to be due to the fact that I am working in an ESL classroom and for that reason the percentage of Hispanic students and Asian students are higher. Going by physical appearances alone, there are no African American students or White students in my classroom.
While I took a closer look into the stats I found that 92% of the students were eligible for subsidized lunch programs. This means that these students are able to receive free or reduced lunches. This indicates that only 8% of the students at this school are above the poverty line. To parallel the high poverty rates are the lower test scores. Consistently through reading, mathematics and writing the students from this Providence school tested 15% lower than similar schools in Rhode Island. Due to residential segregation, these statistics concerning the poverty level are a mirror image of the area in which the school is located. I had mentioned in my first prompt that there were people only a block away from the school that appeared to be homeless.
Once I had gathered all of this information I began to think of Jonathan Kozol. This is because he discusses the segregation of students into schools based on the residential areas that t
hey live in. How our society segregates children into different schools then proceeds to hide behind the excuse of De-facto segregation. De-facto segregation is an excuse for segregation that explains away the situation by saying that schools are merely a reflection of the neighborhoods, and there is nothing that can be done about it. When students who are sharing the common misfortune of being at or below the poverty level are segregated into the same school, it is proven that their test scores are lower than those schools who are segregated with children who are above the poverty line. If Funding for schools is determined by test scores, and a school collectively has lower scores, he result is that the lower scoring school will receive less funding.
I had noticed that in my classroom there is only one computer. This one computer is labeled “The listening center” because all of the children must use this one computer at some point during the day to aid in their learning of correct pronunciation of the English language. One computer is not sufficient for twenty four students who need aid in learning a new language. I have questioned Miss Lemon about this matter, and she had expressed great gratitude in having this computer, and had informed me sadly that not all classrooms are fortunate to have even one computer. There is no computer lab in this school either. I believe that due to De-Facto segregation this school has fallen short on funding for such technical equipment. I found this a little disturbing since the school is so new, and seems to have spent a fair amount of money on being visual appealing.
While I took a closer look into the stats I found that 92% of the students were eligible for subsidized lunch programs. This means that these students are able to receive free or reduced lunches. This indicates that only 8% of the students at this school are above the poverty line. To parallel the high poverty rates are the lower test scores. Consistently through reading, mathematics and writing the students from this Providence school tested 15% lower than similar schools in Rhode Island. Due to residential segregation, these statistics concerning the poverty level are a mirror image of the area in which the school is located. I had mentioned in my first prompt that there were people only a block away from the school that appeared to be homeless.
Once I had gathered all of this information I began to think of Jonathan Kozol. This is because he discusses the segregation of students into schools based on the residential areas that t
hey live in. How our society segregates children into different schools then proceeds to hide behind the excuse of De-facto segregation. De-facto segregation is an excuse for segregation that explains away the situation by saying that schools are merely a reflection of the neighborhoods, and there is nothing that can be done about it. When students who are sharing the common misfortune of being at or below the poverty level are segregated into the same school, it is proven that their test scores are lower than those schools who are segregated with children who are above the poverty line. If Funding for schools is determined by test scores, and a school collectively has lower scores, he result is that the lower scoring school will receive less funding.I had noticed that in my classroom there is only one computer. This one computer is labeled “The listening center” because all of the children must use this one computer at some point during the day to aid in their learning of correct pronunciation of the English language. One computer is not sufficient for twenty four students who need aid in learning a new language. I have questioned Miss Lemon about this matter, and she had expressed great gratitude in having this computer, and had informed me sadly that not all classrooms are fortunate to have even one computer. There is no computer lab in this school either. I believe that due to De-Facto segregation this school has fallen short on funding for such technical equipment. I found this a little disturbing since the school is so new, and seems to have spent a fair amount of money on being visual appealing.
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